Chapter 1787 — One Blade Sunders Yin and Yang

Radiance flowed in Shen Mu's hand as the Taiyi Divine Axe slowly took form.

This time he sensed peril — peril without precedent!

Even greater peril than when he had faced the Third and Fourth Young Masters of Miluo Palace!

The depths of the Boundless Elder's power could not be plumbed!

And he was caught up in the feud between Miluo Palace and the Heavenly Capital — the pivotal link in it, one might say! In the Squalid Grounds of the Ultimate Void, Shen Mu had once come upon the place where the Heavenly Capital had opened the heavens. There, amid the great tribulation that annihilated the Sixth Era, he had seen Emperor Haotian lead the many Dao-Achievers of the Heavenly Capital in cleaving open the primal chaos and bringing forth the cosmos from the vast wilds, while Miluo Palace did not intervene but looked on in silence.

Yet afterward, the Master of Miluo Palace struck down Emperor Haotian in an ambush, saying, "What you have done is wrong.

" From the Boundless Elder's words, the truth behind that assassination was by no means so simple.

Since that day, the strife between the Heavenly Capital and Miluo Palace had stretched on unbroken down to this very hour, with no end in sight.

Shen Mu bowed his head, looked at the radiance in his hand, and said with a wry half-smile, "The Master of Miluo Palace is the teacher of every cultivator. From the First Era to the Seventeenth, the origin of every Dao art and divine power bears his mark in one way or another. How could he listen to you and go assassinate Emperor Haotian?

" The Boundless Elder walked toward him, and Shen Mu's hairs stood on end.

With his back to the Boundless Elder, he felt as though that great tree which holds up the sky of the Ancestral Court were pressing down upon him; the whole of the cosmos, heaven and earth alike, seemed to have become the crushing weight of the World Tree, urging him with desperate urgency to shake off the oppression. But to cast it off he must walk forward — and ahead of him lay the great annihilation beyond the World Tree! Step into it, and he would enter the prehistoric age!

He had stumbled into it once before, and because of that he had brought Taisu forth before her time, forging a grievance with the Goddess Taisu.

For the Shen Mu of today, entering the prehistoric Annihilation was no great danger; the Annihilation could no longer kill him.

But once inside, coming back — that was the difficulty!

The time he had strayed into the prehistoric age, he and Taisu had joined hands and stolen back along the root-hairs of the World Tree. This time, the Boundless Elder would not give him that chance.

He closed his eyes. The radiance in his hand slowly dimmed, shifting into the opening stance of the Heavenly Capital's Heaven-Opening Chapter, ready at any instant to draw and strike!

The Heaven-Opening Chapter was a single sword stroke that sundered the primal chaos — and the deepest Dao-realm Shen Mu had ever realized.

The Primordial Finger, the Red-Cord Knot, Taiyi Felling the Tree — these were all arts he had learned from others, and none could be numbered among his own Dao-realm.

But the Heaven-Opening Chapter was a Dao-realm art he had realized while watching the many mighty ones of the Heavenly Capital hew open sky and earth!

His comprehension of it went deeper than with any other divine art.

The stroke was gathering, poised to fly — yet its target was not the Boundless Elder; it was the Annihilation beyond the World Tree!

There was but one way to keep from falling into the tribulation: in the veriest instant before he was forced beyond the World Tree's shelter and into the Annihilation, strike the Annihilation and cleave it straight through the middle!

He need not split the whole of it; he had only to cut out a road and, seizing it, break free! So long as he did not fall into the tribulation, he would not be flung back to the past!

This was the best strategy he could conceive against the present situation!

But the move laid his back utterly bare to the Boundless Elder.

However perfect, however flawless his body arts, with the Boundless Elder's strength, to gravely wound him would cost not the slightest effort.

Yet Shen Mu had no choice but to do it. "Why would your teacher listen to me, and find himself compelled to assassinate the Heavenly Capital?

" The Boundless Elder's steps were slow, and he said with ease: "He holds the myriad living beings of the world in his heart.

He is a man of unimaginable warmth of heart, and of unimaginable simplicity.

Only with such a warm heart, with a Dao-heart so pure, could he have attained such heights. I did not beguile him, nor did I play to his inclinations. I merely helped him confirm a judgment of his own. " The weight upon Shen Mu grew heavier and heavier, and his voice had turned somewhat hoarse: "What judgment did my teacher make?

" The Master of Miluo Palace as the Boundless Elder described him reminded Shen Mu of Lan Yutian — the same purity of Dao-heart, the same warm-heartedness, the same goodness.

Perhaps the Master of Miluo Palace and Lan Yutian were of the same kind, and that was why so many prodigies were unshakably loyal to him.

"When the Heavenly Capital opened heaven and earth and brought forth a new universe, it was in truth the Dao-Achievers of the Heavenly Capital who fixed the innate Dao of the Seventh-Era cosmos.

The great Daos of those Dao-Achievers became the innate Dao of that universe. " The Boundless Elder kept walking, recalling the past: "That cramped the growth of Dao arts and divine powers, and it bred other troubles besides. The Dao-Achievers of the Heavenly Capital became ancient gods, and upon the innate Dao of the Seventh Era it was all but impossible for any being to arise who was stronger than they, or whose comprehension went deeper.

This was an invisible shackle. Beyond that, the Heavenly Capital seized the greatest power in the Seventh-Era cosmos and began, with great hacking strokes, to change the rules of that universe. The Heavenly Capital made the Seventh Era its proving ground, testing their ideals. " The muscles of Shen Mu's body leapt; pressed by that force, his feet moved forward of themselves, drawing him closer and closer to the Annihilation beyond the World Tree, and in a hoarse voice he said, "Changing the rules — well and good in itself, surely, but there must have been failures. Isn't that so? " One more step forward, and he would be forced to erupt with the Heaven-Opening Chapter, to enter the Annihilation and attempt to cleave a road!

Whether the bid would succeed remained yet unknown! Abruptly, the Boundless Elder halted — and that halt was the most unbearable thing of all. "You have spoken truly.

The Dao-Achievers of the Heavenly Capital made many pioneering undertakings, but failures were the greater part.

Using the Seventh Era as their proving ground, they set off great convulsions and laid living beings waste, and so they came into conflict with the ideals of Miluo Palace.

" The Boundless Elder kept that immense pressure upon him, yet without pushing it to the point where Shen Mu must stake death itself on a desperate stroke, and said unhurriedly: "Conflict of ideals is more dreadful than right and wrong, good and evil.

In right and wrong there is truth and error; where there is error, correct it and be done. But conflicting ideals are different. When ideals clash, they must settle it in life and death.

I only told the Master of Miluo Palace that the Heavenly Capital were a band of Dao-desecrators — that their ideals were wrong, and could not be corrected. " The corners of Shen Mu's eyes twitched. He wanted to open his eyes, yet never did, going on instead with his gathering of power. The moment he opened his three sacred pupils would be the moment the force he had long stored erupted — but the Boundless Elder would give him no such opening at all. "After all, I had my own selfish ends.